Transitions
are phrases or words used to connect one idea and are used by the
writer to help the reader progress from one significant idea to the
next. Transitions also show the relationship within a paragraph (or even
within a sentence) between the main idea and the support the author
gives for those ideas

Here are four types of transitions:

1. Additive: addition, introduction, similarity to other ideas

Addition: indeed, further, as well (as this), either (neither), not only (this) but also, (that) as well,also,
moreover, what is more, as a matter of fact, and, furthermore, in
addition (to this), besides (this), to tell you the truth, or, in fact,
actually, to say nothing of, too,let alone, much less, additionally, nor, alternatively, on the other hand, not to mention (this)

Introduction:such
as, as, particularly, including, as an illustration, for example, like,
in particular, for one thing, to illustrate, for instance, especially,
notably, by way of example

Reference: speaking
about (this), considering (this), regarding (this), with regards to
(this), as for (this), concerning (this), on the subject of (this), the
fact that

Similarity:similarly, in the same way,by the same token, in a like manner, equally, likewise

Identification: that is (to say), namely, specifically, thus,

Clarification:that is (to say), I mean, (to) put (it) another way, in other words

2. Adversative:signal conflict, contradiction

Conflict: but, by way of contrast, while, on the other hand, however, (and) yet, whereas, though (final position),in contrast, when in fact, conversely, still

Emphasis:even more, above all, indeed, more importantly, besides

Concession:but even so, nevertheless, even though, on the other hand, admittedly, however, nonetheless, despite (this), notwithstanding (this), albeit, (and) still, although, in spite of (this), regardless (of this), (and) yet, though, granted (this), be that as it may,

Dismissal:either
way, whichever happens, in either event, in any case, at any rate, in
either case, whatever happens, all the same, in any event,

Replacement:(or) at least, (or) rather, instead

3. Causal: signal cause/effect and reason/result

Cause/Reason:for
the (simple) reason that, being that, for, in view of (the fact),
inasmuch as, because (of the fact), seeing that, as, owing to (the
fact), due to (the fact that), in that since, forasmuch as

Effect/Result: as a result (of this), consequently, hence, for this reason, thus, because (of this), in consequence, so that, accordingly, as a consequence, so much (so) that, so, therefore,

Purpose:
for the purpose of, in the hope that, for fear that, so that, with
this intention, to the end that, in order to, lest, with this in mind,
in order that, so as to, so

Consequence: under those circumstances, then, in that case, if not, that being the case, if so, otherwise

4. Sequential: chronological or logical sequence

Numerical: in the (first, second, etc.) place, initially, to start with, first of all thirdly, (&c.) to begin with,at first,for a start, secondly,

Continuation:subsequently, previously, eventually, next, before (this), afterwards, after (this), then

Conclusion:to conclude (with), as a final point, eventually, at last, last but not least, in the end, finally, lastly,

Digression: to change the topic, incidentally, by the way,

Resumption:to get back to the point, to resume, anyhow, anyway, at any rate, to return to the subject

Summation: as was previously stated,so, consequently, in summary, all in all, to make a long story short,thus, as I have said, to sum up, overall, as has been mentioned,then,to summarize, to be brief, briefly, given these points, in all, on the whole, therefore, as has been noted,hence, in conclusion, in a word, to put it briefly, in sum,altogether,in short,

Shields and Rangarajan (2013) distinguish between the process of reviewing the literature and a finished work or product known as a literature review.[3] The process of reviewing the literature is often ongoing and informs many aspects of the empirical research
project. All of the latest literature should inform a research project.
Scholars need to be scanning the literature long after a formal
literature review product appears to be completed.

A careful literature review is usually 15 to 30 pages and could be longer. The process of reviewing the literature requires different kinds of activities and ways of thinking.[4] Shields and Rangarajan (2013) and Granello (2001) link the activities of doing a literature review with Benjamin Bloom’s
revised taxonomy of the cognitive domain (Ways of thinking -
Remembering, Understanding, Applying, Analyzing, Evaluating and
Creating).[3][5]

The first category in Bloom's taxonomy is remembering.
For a person doing a literature review this would include tasks such as
recognition, retrieval and recollection of the relevant literature.
During this stage relevant books, articles, monographs, dissertations, etc. are identified and read.

Bloom’s second category understanding
occurs as the scholar comprehends the material they have collected and
read. This step is critical because no one can write clearly about
something they do not understand. Understanding may be challenging
because the literature could introduce the scholar to new terminology, conceptual framework and methodology. Comprehension (particularly for new scholars) is often improved by taking careful notes.

In Bloom’s third category applying
the scholar is able to make connections between the literature and his
or her larger research project. This is particularly true if the
literature review is to be a chapter in a future empirical study. The
literature review begins to inform the research question, and
methodological approaches. When scholars analyze (fourth category
in Bloom's taxonomy) they are able to separate material into parts and
figure out how the parts fit together.

Analysis of the literature allows
the scholar to develop frameworks for analysis and the ability to see
the big picture and know how details from the literature fit within the
big picture. Analysis facilitates the development of an outline (list). The books, articles and monographs read will be of different quality and value.

When scholars use Bloom’s fifth category evaluating
they are able to see the strengths and weaknesses of the theories,
arguments, methodology and findings of the literature they have
collected and read.[5]

When scholars engage in creating
the final category in Bloom's taxonomy, they bring creativity to the
process of doing a literature review. In other words, they draw new and
original insights from the literature. They may be able to find a fresh
and original research question, identify a heretofore, unknown gap in
the literature or make surprising connections. By understanding how ways
of thinking connect to tasks of a literature review, a scholar is able
to be self-reflective and bring metacognition to the process of reviewing the literature.[6]

Most of these tasks and thinking challenges occur before the writing even begins. The process
of reviewing the literature and writing a literature review can be
complicated and lengthy. It is helpful to bring a system of organization
and planning to the task. When an orderly system can be designed, it is
easier to keep track of the articles, books, materials read, notes,
outlines and drafts. [7]

The aim of a literature review is to show
your reader (your tutor) that you have read, and have a good grasp of,
the main published work concerning a particular topic or question in
your field. This work may be in any format, including online sources.
It may be a separate assignment, or one of the introductory sections
of a report, dissertation or thesis. In the latter cases in particular,
the review will be guided by your research objective or by the issue
or thesis you are arguing and will provide the framework for your further
work.

It is very important to note that your review
should not be simply a description of what others have published in
the form of a set of summaries, but should take the form of a critical
discussion, showing insight and an awareness of differing arguments,
theories and approaches. It should be a synthesis and analysis of the
relevant published work, linked at all times to your own purpose and
rationale.

According to Caulley (1992) of La Trobe University,
the literature review should:

• compare and contrast different authors'
views on an issue
• group authors who draw similar conclusions
• criticise aspects of methodology
• note areas in which authors are in disagreement
• highlight exemplary studies
• highlight gaps in research
• show how your study relates to previous studies
• show how your study relates to the literature in general
• conclude by summarising what the literature says

The purposes of the review are:

• to define and limit the problem
you are working on
• to place your study in an historical perspective
• to avoid unnecessary duplication
• to evaluate promising research methods
• to relate your findings to previous knowledge and suggest further
research

A good literature review, therefore, is critical
of what has been written, identifies areas of controversy, raises questions
and identifies areas which need further research.

Structure of the literature review

The overall structure of your review will
depend largely on your own thesis or research area. What you will need
to do is to group together and compare and contrast the varying opinions
of different writers on certain topics. What you must not do is just
describe what one writer says, and then go on to give a general overview
of another writer, and then another, and so on. Your structure should
be dictated instead by topic areas, controversial issues or by questions
to which there are varying approaches and theories. Within each of these
sections, you would then discuss what the different literature argues,
remembering to link this to your own purpose.

Linking words are important. If
you are grouping together writers with similar opinions, you would use
words or phrases such as:

similarly, in addition,
also, again

More importantly, if there is disagreement,
you need to indicate clearly that you are aware of this by the use of
linkers such as:

however, on the other hand,
conversely, nevertheless

At the end of the review you should include
a summary of what the literature implies, which again links to your
hypothesis or main question.

Writing the review

You first need to decide what you need to
read. In many cases you will be given a booklist or directed towards
areas of useful published work. Make sure you use this help. With dissertations,
and particularly theses, it will be more down to you to decide. It is
important, therefore, to try and decide on the parameters of your research.
What exactly are your objectives and what do you need to find out? In
your review, are you looking at issues of theory, methodology, policy,
quantitive research, or what? Before you start reading it may be useful
to compile a list of the main areas and questions involved, and then
read with the purpose of finding out about or answering these. Unless
something comes up which is particularly important, stick to this list,
as it is very easy to get sidetracked, particularly on the internet.

A good literature review needs a clear line
of argument. You therefore need to use the critical notes and comments
you made whilst doing your reading to express an academic opinion. Make
sure that:

• you include a clear, short introduction
which gives an outline of the review, including the main topics covered
and the order of the arguments, with a brief rationale for this.

• there is always a clear link between
your own arguments and the evidence uncovered in your reading. Include
a short summary at the end of each section.
Use quotations if appropriate.

• you always acknowledge opinions which
do not agree with your thesis. If you ignore opposing viewpoints, your
argument will in fact be weaker.

Your review must be written in a formal, academic style. Keep your writing
clear and concise, avoiding colloquialisms and personal language. You
should always aim to be objective and respectful of others' opinions;
this is not the place for emotive language or strong personal opinions.
If you thought something was rubbish, use words such as "inconsistent",
"lacking in certain areas" or "based on false assumptions"!
(See Guide 1.21)

When introducing someone's opinion,
don't use "says", but instead an appropriate verb which more
accurately reflects this viewpoint, such as "argues", "claims"
or "states". Use the present tense for general opinions and
theories, or the past when referring to specific research or experiments:

Although Trescothick (2001) argues
that attack is the best form of defence, Boycott (1969) claims that
...

In a field study carried out amongst the
homeless of Sydney, Warne (1999) found that ...

And remember at all times to avoid plagiarising
your sources. Always separate your source opinions from your own hypothesis.
making sure you consistently reference the literature you are referring
to. When you are doing your reading and making notes, it might be an
idea to use different colours to distinguish between your ideas and
those of others. (See Guide 1.13).

Final checklist

Here is a final checklist, courtesy of the
University of Melbourne:

Selection of Sources

Have you indicated the
purpose of the review?

Are the parameters of
the review reasonable?

Why did you include
some of the literature and exclude others?

Which years did you
exclude?

Have you emphasised
recent developments?

Have you focussed on
primary sources with only selective use of secondary sources?

Is the literature you
have selected relevant?

Is your bibliographic
data complete?

Critical Evaluation of
the Literature

Have you organised your
material according to issues?

Is there a logic to
the way you organised the material?

Does the amount of detail
included on an issue relate to its importance?

Have you been sufficiently
critical of design and methodological issues?

Have you indicated when
results were conflicting or inconclusive and discussed possible reasons?

Have you indicated the
relevance of each reference to your research?

Interpretation

Has your summary of
the current literature contributed to the reader's understanding of
the problems?

Does the design of your
research reflect the methodological implications of the literature review?

Note

The literature review
will be judged in the context of your completed research.

The review needs to
further the reader's understanding of the problem and whether it provides
a rationale for your research.

How to write a thesis? This guide gives simple and practical advice on the problems of getting started, getting organised, dividing the huge task into less formidable pieces and working on those pieces. It also explains the practicalities of surviving the ordeal. It includes a suggested structure and a guide to what should go in each section. It was originally written for graduate students in physics, and most of the specific examples given are taken from that discipline. Nevertheless, the feedback from users indicates that it has been widely used and appreciated by graduate students in diverse fields in the sciences and humanities.

Getting Started

When you are about to begin, writing a thesis seems a long, difficult task. That is because it is a
long, difficult task. Fortunately, it will seem less daunting once you have a couple of chapters done.
Towards the end, you will even find yourself enjoying it---an enjoyment based on satisfaction in the
achievement, pleasure in the improvement in your technical writing, and of course the approaching
end. Like many tasks, thesis writing usually seems worst before you begin, so let us look at how
you should make a start.

First make up a thesis outline: several pages containing chapter headings, sub-headings, some figure
titles (to indicate which results go where) and perhaps some other notes and comments. There is a
section on chapter order and thesis structure at the end of this text.
Once you have a list of chapters and, under each chapter heading, a reasonably complete list of things
to be reported or explained, you have struck a great blow against writer's block. When you sit down
to type, your aim is no longer a thesis---a daunting goal---but something simpler. Your new aim is
just to write a paragraph or section about one of your subheadings. It helps to start with an easy one:
this gets you into the habit of writing and gives you self-confidence. In an experimental thesis, the Materials and Methods
chapter is often the easiest to write – just write down what you did; carefully, formally and in a logical
order.

How do you make an outline of a chapter? For most of them, you might try the method that I use for
writing papers, and which I learned from my thesis adviser (Stjepan Marcelja): Assemble all the figures that you will use
in it and put them in the order that you would use if you were going to explain to someone what they
all meant. You might as well rehearse explaining it to someone else---after all you will probably
give several talks based on your thesis work. Once you have found the most logical order, note
down the key words of your explanation. These key words provide a skeleton for much of
your chapter outline.

Once you have an outline, discuss it with your adviser. This step is important: s/he will have useful
suggestions, but it also serves notice that s/he can expect a steady flow of chapter drafts that will
make high priority demands on his/her time. Once you and your adviser have agreed on a logical
structure, s/he will need a copy of this outline for reference when reading the chapters which you will
probably present out of order. If you have a co-adviser, discuss the outline with him/her as well, and
present all chapters to both advisers for comments.

It is encouraging and helpful to start a filing system. Open a word-processor file for each chapter
and
one for the references. You can put notes in these files, as well as text. While doing something for
Chapter n, you will think "Oh I must refer back to/discuss this in Chapter m" and so you put a note to
do so in the file for Chapter m. Or you may think of something interesting or relevant for that chapter.
When you come to work on Chapter m, the more such notes you have accumulated, the easier it will be to write.

Make a back-up of these files and do so every day at least
(depending on the reliability of your computer and the age of your disk
drive). Do not keep back-up close to the computer in case
the hypothetical thief who fancies your computer decides that s/he could
use some disks or membory as well.

A simple way of making a remote back-up is to send it as an email
attachment to a consenting email correspondent, preferably one in a
different location. You could also send it to yourself. In either case,
be careful to dispose of superseded versions so that you don't waste
disk space, especially if you have bitmap images or other large files.

You should also have a physical filing system: a collection of folders with chapter numbers on them.
This will make you feel good about getting started and also help clean up your desk. Your files will
contain not just the plots of results and pages of calculations, but all sorts of old notes, references,
calibration curves, suppliers' addresses, specifications, speculations, letters from colleagues etc.,
which will suddenly strike you as relevant to one chapter or other. Stick them in that folder. Then put
all the folders in a box or a filing cabinet. As you write bits and pieces of text, place the hard copy,
the figures etc in these folders as well. Touch them and feel their thickness from time to time – ah, the
thesis is taking shape.

If any of your data exist only on paper, copy them and keep the copy in a different location. Consider
making a copy of your lab book. This has another purpose beyond security: usually the lab book
stays in the lab, but you may want a copy for your own future use. Further, scientific ethics require
you to keep lab books and original data for at least ten years, and a copy is more likely to be found if
two copies exist.

If you haven't already done so, you should archive your electronic data,
in an appropriate format. Spreadsheet and word processor files are not
suitable for long term storage. Archiving data by Joseph Slater is a good guide.

While you are getting organised, you should deal with any university paperwork. Examiners have
to be nominated and they have to agree to serve. Various forms are required by your department and
by the university administration. Make sure that the rate limiting step is your production of the
thesis, and not some minor bureaucratic problem.

One of the big FAQs for scientists: is there a word processor, ideally
one compatible with MS Word, but which allows you to type mathematical
symbols and equations conveniently? One solution is LaTeX, which is
powerful, elegant, reliable, fast and free from http://www.latex-project.org/ or http://www.miktex.org/.
The standard equation editor for MS Word is point and click, so
extremely slow and awkward. In many versions, Word's equation editor can
be reached via hotkey Alt-equals, and takes pseudo latex typed input
(eg X_1 converts to X subscript 1) upon the next space or operator. It
uses some different formats - eg () rather than the {} of latex to group
things and interprets divisions rather than having to use \frac.
Here's a link: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/murrays/archive/2008/02/17/hidden-math-features-in-word-2007.aspx
It has been useful to know these as it seems biologists and latex don't mix!

A timetable

I strongly recommend sitting down with the adviser and making up a
timetable for writing it: a list of dates for when you will give the
first and second drafts of each chapter to your adviser(s). This
structures
your time and provides intermediate targets. If you merely aim "to have
the whole thing done by [some distant date]", you can deceive yourself
and procrastinate more easily. If you have told your adviser that you
will deliver a first draft of chapter 3 on Wednesday, it focuses your
attention.

You may want to make your timetable into a chart with items that you can
check off as you have finished them. This is particularly useful
towards the end of the thesis when you find there will be quite a few
loose ends here and there.

Whenever you sit down to write, it is very important to write something.
So write something,
even if it is just a set of notes or a few paragraphs of text that you
would never show to anyone else. It would be nice if clear, precise
prose leapt easily from the keyboard, but it
usually does not. Most of us find it easier, however, to improve
something that is already written
than to produce text from nothing. So put down a draft (as rough as you
like) for your own
purposes, then clean it up for your adviser to read. Word-processors are
wonderful in this regard: in the first draft you do not have to start
at the beginning, you can leave gaps, you can put in little notes
to yourself, and then you can clean it all up later.

Your adviser will expect to read each chapter in draft form. S/he will then return it to you with
suggestions and comments. Do not be upset if a chapter---especially the first one you write---
returns
covered in red ink (or its electronic equivalent). Your adviser will want your thesis to be as good as possible, because his/her
reputation as well as yours is affected. Scientific writing is a difficult art, and it takes a while to learn.
As a consequence, there will be many ways in which your first draft can be improved. So take a
positive attitude to all the scribbles with which your adviser decorates your text: each comment tells
you a way in which you can make your thesis better.

As you write your thesis, your scientific writing is almost certain to improve. Even for native
speakers of English who write very well in other styles, one notices an enormous improvement in the
first drafts from the first to the last chapter written. The process of writing the thesis is like a course
in scientific writing, and in that sense each chapter is like an assignment in which you are taught, but
not assessed. Remember, only the final draft is assessed: the more comments your adviser adds to
first or second draft, the better.

Before you submit a draft to your adviser, run a spell check so that s/he does not waste time on
those. If you have any characteristic grammatical failings, check for them.

What is a thesis? For whom is it written? How should it be written?

Your thesis is a research report. The report concerns a problem or series of problems in your area of
research and it should describe what was known about it previously, what you did towards solving it,
what you think your results mean, and where or how further progress in the field can be made.
Do not carry over your ideas from undergraduate assessment: a thesis is not an answer to an
assignment question. One important difference is this: the reader of an assignment is usually the one
who has set it. S/he already knows the answer (or one of the answers), not to mention the
background, the literature, the assumptions and theories and the strengths and weaknesses of them.
The readers of a thesis do not know what the "answer" is. If the thesis is for a PhD, the university
requires that it make an original contribution to human knowledge: your research must discover
something hitherto unknown.

Obviously your examiners will read the thesis. They will be experts in the general
field of your thesis but, on the exact topic of your thesis, you are the world expert. Keep this in
mind: you should write to make the topic clear to a reader who has not spent most of the last three
years thinking about it.

Your thesis will also be used as a scientific report and consulted by
future workers in your laboratory
who will want to know, in detail, what you did. Theses are occasionally
consulted by people from
other institutions, and the library sends microfilm versions if
requested (yes, still). More commonly theses are
now stored in an entirely digital form. These may be stored as .pdf
files on a server at your university. The advantage is that your thesis
can be consulted much more easily by researchers around the
world. (See e.g. Australian digital thesis project for the digital availability of research theses.) Write with these possibilities in mind.

It is often helpful to have someone other than your adviser(s) read some sections of the thesis,
particularly the introduction and conclusion chapters. It may also be appropriate to ask other members
of staff to read some sections of the thesis which they may find relevant or of interest, as they may be
able to make valuable contributions. In either case, only give them revised versions, so that they do
not waste time correcting your grammar, spelling, poor construction or presentation.

The short answer is: rather more than for a scientific paper. Once your thesis has been assessed and
your friends have read the first three pages, the only further readers are likely to be people who are
seriously doing research in just that area. For example, a future research student might be pursuing
the same research and be interested to find out exactly what you did. ("Why doesn't the widget that
Bloggs built for her project work any more? Where's the circuit diagram? I'll look up her thesis."
"Blow's subroutine doesn't converge in my parameter space! I'll have to look up his thesis." "How
did that group in Sydney manage to get that technique to work? I'll order a microfilm of that thesis
they cited in their paper.") For important parts of apparatus, you should include workshop drawings,
circuit diagrams and computer programs, usually as appendices. (By the way, the intelligible
annotation of programs is about as frequent as porcine aviation, but it is far more desirable. You
wrote that line of code for a reason: at the end of the line explain what the reason is.)
You have probably read the theses of previous students in the lab where you are now working, so
you probably know the advantages of a clearly explained, explicit thesis and/or the disadvantages
of a vague one.

If you use a result, observation or generalisation that is not your own,
you must usually state where
in the scientific literature that result is reported. The only
exceptions are cases where every researcher in the field already knows
it: dynamics equations need not be followed by a citation of Newton,
circuit analysis does not need a
reference to Kirchoff. The importance of this practice in science is
that it allows the reader to verify
your starting position. Physics in particular is said to be a vertical
science: results are built upon results which in
turn are built upon results etc. Good referencing allows us to check the
foundations of your additions
to the structure of knowledge in the discipline, or at least to trace
them back to a level which we judge to be reliable.
Good referencing also tells the reader which parts of the thesis are
descriptions of previous
knowledge and which parts are your additions to that knowledge. In a
thesis, written for the general
reader who has little familiarity with the literature of the field, this
should be especially clear.
It may seem tempting to leave out a reference in the hope that a reader
will think that a nice idea or an
nice bit of analysis is yours. I advise against this gamble. The reader
will probably think: "What a
nice idea---I wonder if it's original?". The reader can probably find
out via the net or the library.

If you are writing in the passive voice, you must be more careful about
attribution than if you are writing in the active voice. "The sample was
prepared by heating yttrium..." does not make it clear
whether you did this or whether Acme Yttrium did it. "I prepared the
sample..." is clear.

The text must be clear. Good grammar and thoughtful writing will make the thesis easier to read.
Scientific writing has to be a little formal---more formal than this text. Native English speakers should
remember that scientific English is an international language. Slang and informal writing will be
harder for a non-native speaker to understand.

Short, simple phrases and words are often better than long ones. Some
politicians use "at this
point in
time" instead of "now" precisely because it takes longer to convey the
same meaning. They
do not care about elegance or efficient communication. You should. On
the other hand, there will be times when you need a complicated sentence
because the idea is complicated. If your primary statement requires
several qualifications, each
of these may need a subordinate clause: "When [qualification], and where
[proviso], and if
[condition] then [statement]". Some lengthy technical words will also be
necessary in many
theses, particularly in fields like biochemistry. Do not
sacrifice accuracy for the sake of brevity. "Black is white" is simple
and catchy. An advertising
copy writer would love it. "Objects of very different albedo may be
illuminated differently so
as to produce similar reflected spectra" is longer and uses less common
words, but, compared to the former example, it has the advantage of
being true. The longer
example would be fine in a physics thesis
because English speaking physicists will not have trouble with the
words. (A physicist who
did not know all of those words would probably be glad to remedy the
lacuna either from
the context or by consulting a dictionary.)

Sometimes it is easier to present information and arguments as a series of numbered points,
rather than as one or more long and awkward paragraphs. A list of points is usually easier to write.
You should be careful not to use this presentation too much: your thesis must be a connected,
convincing argument, not just a list of facts and observations.

One important stylistic choice is between the active voice and passive
voice. The active voice ("I measured the
frequency...") is simpler, and it makes clear what you did and what was
done by others. The passive voice ("The
frequency was measured...") makes it easier to write ungrammatical or
awkward sentences. If you
use the passive voice, be especially wary of dangling participles. For
example, the sentence "After
considering all of these possible materials, plutonium was selected"
implicitly attributes
consciousness to plutonium. This choice is a question of taste: I prefer
the active because it is clearer, more
logical and makes attribution simple. The only arguments I have ever
heard for avoiding the active voice in a thesis are (i) many
theses are written in the passive voice, and (ii) some very polite
people find the use of "I" immodest. Use the first person singular, not
plural, when reporting work that you did yourself: the editorial 'we'
may suggest that you had help beyond that listed in your
acknowledgments, or it may suggest that you are trying to share any
blame.
On the other hand, retain plural verbs for "data": "data" is the plural
of "datum", and lots of scientists like to preserve the distinction.
Just say to yourself "one datum is ..", "these data are.." several
times.
An excellent and widely used reference for English grammar and style is A Dictionary of Modern
English Usage by H.W. Fowler.

There is no need for a thesis to be a masterpiece of desk-top publishing. Your time can be more
productively spent improving the content than the appearance.

In many cases, a reasonably neat diagram can be drawn by hand faster
than with a graphics package, and you can scan it if you want an
electronic version.
Either is usually satisfactory. A one bit (i.e. black and white),
moderate resolution scan of a hand-drawn sketch will be bigger than a
line drawing generated on a graphics package, but not huge. While
talking about the size of files, we should mention that photographs look
pretty but take up a lot of memory. There's another important
difference, too. The photographer thought about the camera angle and the
focus etc. The person who drew the schematic diagram thought about what
components ought to be depicted and the way in which the components of
the system interacted with each other. So the numerically small
information content of the line drawing may be much more useful
information than that in a photograph.

Another note about figures and photographs. In the digital version of
your thesis, do not save ordinary photographs or other illustrations as
bitmaps, because these take up a lot of memory and are therefore very
slow to transfer. Nearly all graphics packages allow you to save in
compressed format as .jpg (for photos) or .gif (for diagrams) files.
Further, you can save space/speed things up by reducing the number of
colours. In vector graphics (as used for drawings), compression is
usually unnecessary.

In general, students spend too much time on diagrams---time that could have been spent on examining
the arguments, making the explanations clearer, thinking more about the significance and checking
for errors in the algebra. The reason, of course, is that drawing is easier than thinking.

I do not think that there is a strong correlation (either way) between length and quality. There is no
need to leave big gaps to make the thesis thicker. Readers will not appreciate large amounts of vague
or unnecessary text.

Approaching the end

A deadline is very useful in some ways. You must hand in the thesis, even if you think that
you need one more draft of that chapter, or someone else's comments on this section, or
some other refinement. If you do not have a deadline, or if you are thinking about postponing
it, please take note of this: A thesis is a very large work. It cannot be made
perfect in a finite time. There will inevitably be things in it that you could have done better. There will be
inevitably be some typos. Indeed, by some law related to Murphy's, you will discover one
when you first flip open the bound copy. No matter how much you reflect and how many
times you proof read it, there will be some things that could be improved. There is no point
hoping that the examiners will not notice: many examiners feel obliged to find some examples
of improvements (if not outright errors) just to show how thoroughly they have read it. So set
yourself a deadline and stick to it. Make it as good as you can in that time, and then hand it in!
(In retrospect, there was an advantage in writing a thesis in the days before word processors,
spelling checkers and typing programs. Students often paid a typist to produce the final
draft and could only afford to do that once.)

How many copies?

Talk to your adviser about this. As well as those for the examiners, the university libraries and
yourself, you should make some distribution copies. These copies should be sent to other researchers who
are working in your field so that:

they can discover what marvellous work you have been doing before it appears in journals;

they can look up the fine details of methods and results that will or have been published more
briefly elsewhere;

they can realise what an excellent researcher you are. This realisation could be useful if a post-
doctoral position were available in their labs. soon after your submission, or if they were
reviewers of your research/post-doctoral proposal. Even having your name in their bookcases might
be an advantage.

Whatever the University's policy on single or double-sided copies, the
distribution copies could be
double-sided paper, or digital, so that forests and postage accounts are
not excessively depleted by the exercise. Your
adviser could help you to make up a list of interested and/or
potentially useful people for such a
mailing list. Your adviser might also help by funding the copies and
postage if they are not covered
by your scholarship. A CD with your thesis will be cheaper than a paper
copy. You don't have to burn them all yourself: companies make multiple
copies for several dollars a copy.

The following comment comes from Marilyn Ball of the Australian National University in Canberra:
"When I finished writing my thesis, a postdoc wisely told me to give a copy to my parents. I would
never have thought of doing that as I just couldn't imagine what they would do with it. I'm very
glad to have taken that advice as my parents really appreciated receiving a copy and proudly
displayed it for years. (My mother never finished high school and my father worked with trucks
- he fixed 'em, built 'em, drove 'em, sold 'em and junked 'em. Nevertheless, they enjoyed having
a copy of my thesis.)"

In the ideal situation, you will be able to spend a large part---perhaps a majority---of your time writing
your thesis. This may be bad for your physical and mental health.

Typing

Set up your chair and computer properly. The Health Service,
professional keyboard users or
perhaps even the school safety officer will be able to supply charts
showing recommended relative
heights, healthy postures and also exercises that you should do if you
spend a lot of time at the
keyboard. These last are worthwhile insurance: you do not want the extra
hassle of back or neck
pain. Try to intersperse long sessions of typing with other tasks, such
as reading, drawing, calculating, thinking or doing research.

If you do not touch type, you should learn to do so for the sake of your neck as well as for
productivity.
There are several good software packages that teach touch typing interactively. If you use one for
say 30 minutes a day for a couple of weeks, you will be able to touch type. By the time you
finish the thesis, you will be able to touch type quickly and accurately and your six hour
investment will have paid for itself. Be careful not to use the typing exercises as a displacement
activity.

Exercise

Do not give up exercise for the interim. Lack of exercise makes you feel bad, and you do
not need anything else making you feel bad while writing a thesis. 30-60 minutes of exercise per day
is probably not time lost from your thesis: I find that if I do not get regular exercise, I sleep less
soundly and longer. How about walking to work and home again? (Walk part of the way if your
home is distant.) Many people opine that a walk helps them think, or clears the head. You may find
that an occasional stroll improves your productivity.

Food

Do not forget to eat, and make an effort to eat healthy food. You should not lose fitness or risk
illness at this critical time. Exercise is good for keeping you appetite at a healthy level. I know that you have little
time for cooking, but keep a supply of fresh fruit, vegetables and bread. It takes less time to make a
sandwich than to go to the local fast food outlet, and you will feel better afterwards.

Drugs

Thesis writers have a long tradition of using coffee as a stimulant and alcohol or marijuana as
relaxants. (Use of alcohol and coffee is legal, use of marijuana is not.) Used in moderation, they do not seem to have ill
effects on the quality of thesis produced. Excesses, however, are obviously counter-productive:
several espressi and you will be buzzing too much to sit down and work; several drinks at night
will slow you down next day.

Others

Other people will be sympathetic, but do not take them for granted. Spouses, lovers, family and
friends should not be undervalued. Spend some time with them and, when you do, have a good time.
Do not spend your time together complaining about your thesis: they already resent the thesis because
it is keeping you away from them. If you can find another student writing a thesis, then you may find
it therapeutic to complain to each other about advisers and difficulties. S/he need not be in the same
discipline as you are.

Keep going---you're nearly there! Most PhDs will admit that there were
times when we thought about reasons for not finishing. But it would be
crazy to give up at the writing stage, after years of work on the
research, and it would be something to regret for a long time.

Writing a thesis is tough work. One anonymous post doctoral researcher
told me: "You should
tell everyone that it's going to be unpleasant, that it will mess up
their lives, that they will have to
give up their friends and their social lives for a while. It's a tough
period for
almost every student."
She's right: it is certainly hard work, it will probably be stressful
and you will have to adapt
your rhythm to it. It is also an important rite of passage and the
satisfaction you will feel afterwards is wonderful. On behalf of
scholars everywhere,
I wish you good luck!

The list of contents and chapter headings below is appropriate for some theses. In some cases, one or
two of them may be irrelevant. Results and Discussion are usually combined in several chapters of a
thesis. Think about the plan of chapters and decide what is best to report your work. Then make a
list, in point form, of what will go in each chapter. Try to make this rather detailed, so that you end
up with a list of points that corresponds to subsections or even to the paragraphs of your thesis. At
this stage, think hard about the logic of the presentation: within chapters, it is often possible to
present the ideas in different order, and not all arrangements will be equally easy to follow. If you
make a plan of each chapter and section before you sit down to write, the result will probably be
clearer and easier to read. It will also be easier to write.

Copyright waiver

Your institution may have a form for this (UNSW does). In any case, this standard page gives the university
library the right to publish the work, possibly by microfilm or other medium. (At UNSW, the Postgraduate Student Office
will give you a thesis pack with various guide-lines and rules about thesis format. Make sure
that you consult that for its formal requirements, as well as this rather informal guide.)

Declaration

Check the wording required by your institution, and whether there is a standard form. Many universities require something
like: "I hereby
declare that this submission is my own work and that, to the best of my knowledge and belief,
it contains no material previously published or written by another person nor material which to
a substantial extent has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma of the
university or other institute of higher learning, except where due acknowledgment has been
made in the text. (signature/name/date)"

Title page

This may vary among institutions, but as an example:
Title/author/"A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the
Faculty of Science/The University of New South Wales"/date.

Abstract

Of all your thesis, this part will be the most widely published and most read because it
will be published in Dissertation Abstracts International. It is best written towards the end, but
not at the very last minute because you will probably need several drafts. It should be a
distillation of the thesis: a concise description of the problem(s) addressed, your method of
solving it/them, your results and conclusions. An abstract must be self-contained. Usually they
do not contain references. When a reference is necessary, its details should be included in the
text of the abstract. Check the word limit. Remember: even though it appears at the beginning, an abstract is not an introduction. It is a résumé of your thesis.

Acknowledgments

Most thesis authors put in a page of thanks to those who have helped them
in matters scientific, and also indirectly by providing such essentials as food, education, genes,
money, help, advice, friendship etc. If any of your work is collaborative, you should make it
quite clear who did which sections.

Table of contents

The introduction starts on page 1, the earlier pages should have roman numerals. It
helps to have the subheadings of each chapter, as well as the chapter titles. Remember that the
thesis may be used as a reference in the lab, so it helps to be able to find things easily.

Introduction

What is the topic and why is it important? State the problem(s) as simply as you can.
Remember that you have been working on this project for a few years, so you will be very
close to it. Try to step back mentally and take a broader view of the problem. How does it fit
into the broader world of your discipline?

Especially in the introduction, do not overestimate the reader's
familiarity with your topic. You
are writing for researchers in the general area, but not all of them
need be specialists in your particular topic. It may help to imagine
such a person---think of some researcher whom you
might have met at a conference for your subject, but who was working in a
different area. S/he
is intelligent, has the same general background, but knows little of the
literature or tricks that
apply to your particular topic.

The introduction should be interesting. If you bore the reader here, then you are unlikely to
revive his/her interest in the materials and methods section. For the first paragraph or two,
tradition permits prose that is less dry than the scientific norm. If want to wax lyrical about
your topic, here is the place to do it. Try to make the reader want to read the heavy bundle
that has arrived uninvited on his/her desk. Go to the library and read several thesis
introductions. Did any make you want to read on? Which ones were boring?

This section might go through several drafts to make it read well and logically, while keeping it
short. For this section, I think that it is a good idea to ask someone who is not a specialist to
read it and to comment. Is it an adequate introduction? Is it easy to follow?
There is an argument for writing this section---or least making a major revision of it---towards
the end of the thesis writing. Your introduction should tell where the thesis is going, and this
may become clearer during the writing.

Literature review

Where did the problem come from? What is already known about this problem?
What other methods have been tried to solve it?

Ideally, you will already have much of the hard work done, if you have been keeping up with
the literature as you vowed to do three years ago, and if you have made notes about important
papers over the years. If you have summarised those papers, then you have some good starting
points for the review.

If you didn't keep your literature notes up to date, you
can still do something useful: pass on the following advice to any
beginning PhD students in your lab and tell them how useful this would
have been to you. When you start reading about a topic, you should open a
spread sheet file, or at least a word processor file, for your
literature review. Of course you write down the title, authors, year,
volume and pages. But you also write a summary (anything from a couple
of sentences to a couple of pages, depending on the relevance). In other
columns of the spread sheet, you can add key words (your own and
theirs) and comments about its importance, relevance to you and its
quality.

How many papers? How relevant do they have to be before you include them? Well, that is a
matter of judgement. On the order of a hundred is reasonable, but it will depend on the field.
You are the world expert on the (narrow) topic of your thesis: you must demonstrate this.

A political point: make sure that you do not omit relevant
papers by researchers who are like to be your examiners, or by
potential employers to whom you might be sending the thesis in the next
year or two.

Middle chapters

In some theses, the middle chapters are the journal articles of which the student was major
author. There are several disadvantages to this format.

One is that a thesis is both allowed and expected to have more detail than a journal article. For
journal articles, one usually has to reduce the number of figures. In many cases, all of the
interesting and relevant data can go in the thesis, and not just those which appeared in the
journal. The degree of experimental detail is usually greater in a thesis. Relatively often a
researcher requests a thesis in order to obtain more detail about how a study was performed.

Another disadvantage is that your journal articles may have some common material in the
introduction and the "Materials and Methods" sections.

The exact structure in the middle chapters will vary among theses. In some theses, it is
necessary to establish some theory, to describe the experimental techniques, then to report what
was done on several different problems or different stages of the problem, and then finally to
present a model or a new theory based on the new work. For such a thesis, the chapter
headings might be: Theory, Materials and Methods, {first problem}, {second
problem},
{third problem}, {proposed theory/model} and then the conclusion chapter. For other theses,
it might be appropriate to discuss different techniques in different chapters, rather than to have a
single Materials and Methods chapter.

Here follow some comments on the elements Materials and Methods, Theory, Results and
discussion which may or may not correspond to thesis chapters.

Materials and Methods

This varies enormously from thesis to thesis, and may be absent in
theoretical theses. It should be possible for a competent researcher to reproduce exactly what you
have done by following your description. There is a good chance that this test will be applied:
sometime after you have left, another researcher will want to do a similar experiment either with
your gear, or on a new set-up in a foreign country. Please write for the benefit of that
researcher.

In some theses, particularly multi-disciplinary or developmental ones, there may be more than
one such chapter. In this case, the different disciplines should be indicated in the chapter titles.

Theory

When you are reporting theoretical work that is not original, you will usually need to
include sufficient material to allow the reader to understand the arguments used and their
physical bases. Sometimes you will be able to present the theory ab initio, but you should not
reproduce two pages of algebra that the reader could find in a standard text. Do not include
theory that you are not going to relate to the work you have done.

When writing this section, concentrate at least as much on the physical arguments as on the
equations. What do the equations mean? What are the important cases?

When you are reporting your own theoretical work, you must include rather more detail, but
you should consider moving lengthy derivations to appendices. Think too about the order and
style of presentation: the order in which you did the work may not be the clearest
presentation.

Suspense is not necessary in reporting science: you should tell the reader where you are going
before you start.

Results and discussion

The results and discussion are very often combined in theses. This is
sensible because of the length of a thesis: you may have several chapters of results and, if you
wait till they are all presented before you begin discussion, the reader may have difficulty
remembering what you are talking about. The division of Results and Discussion material into
chapters is usually best done according to subject matter.

Make sure that you have described the conditions which obtained for each set of results. What
was held constant? What were the other relevant parameters? Make sure too that you have used
appropriate statistical analyses. Where applicable, show measurement errors and standard
errors on the graphs. Use appropriate statistical tests.

Take care plotting graphs. The origin and intercepts are often important so, unless the
ranges of your data make it impractical, the zeros of one or both scales should usually appear on the
graph. You should show error bars on the data, unless the errors are very small. For single measurements,
the bars should be your best estimate of the experimental errors in each coordinate. For multiple
measurements these should include the standard error in the data.
The errors in different
data are often different, so, where this is the case, regressions and fits should be weighted (i.e.
they should minimize the sum of squares of the differences weighted inversely as the size of
the errors.) (A common failing in many simple software packages that draw graphs
and do regressions is that they do not treat errors adequately. UNSW student Mike Johnston has written a
plotting
routine that plots data with error bars and performs weighted least
square regressions. It is at
http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/3rdyearlab/graphing/graph.html). You can
just 'paste' your data into the input and it generates a .ps file of the
graph.

In most cases, your results need discussion. What do they mean? How do they fit into the
existing body of knowledge? Are they consistent with current theories? Do they give new
insights? Do they suggest new theories or mechanisms?

Try to distance yourself from your usual perspective and look at your work. Do not just ask
yourself what it means in terms of the orthodoxy of your own research group, but also how
other people in the field might see it. Does it have any implications that do not relate to the
questions that you set out to answer?

Final chapter, references and appendices

Conclusions and suggestions for further work

Your abstract should include your
conclusions in very brief form, because it must also include some other material. A summary
of conclusions is usually longer than the final section of the abstract, and you have the space to
be more explicit and more careful with qualifications. You might find it helpful to put your
conclusions in point form.

It is often the case with scientific investigations that more questions than answers are produced.
Does your work suggest any interesting further avenues? Are there ways in which your work
could be improved by future workers? What are the practical implications of your work?

This chapter should usually be reasonably short---a few pages perhaps. As with the
introduction, I think that it is a good idea to ask someone who is not a specialist to read this
section and to comment.

References (See also under literature review)

It is tempting to omit the titles of the articles cited,
and the university allows this, but think of all the times when you have seen a reference in a
paper and gone to look it up only to find that it was not helpful after all.

Should you reference web sites and, if so, how? If you cite a journal
article or book, the reader can go to a library and check that the cited
document and check whether or not it says what you say it did. A web
site may disappear, and it may have been updated or changed completely.
So references to the web are usually less satisfactory. Nevertheless,
there are some very useful and authoritative sources. So, if the rules of your institution permit it,
it may be appropriate to cite web sites. (Be cautious, and don't
overuse such citations. In particular, don't use a web citation where
you could reasonably use a "hard" citation. Remember that your examiners
are likely to be older and more conservative.) You should give the URL
and also the date you downloaded it. If there is a date on the site
itself (last updated on .....) you should included that, too.

Appendices

If there is material that should be in the thesis but which would break up the flow or
bore the reader unbearably, include it as an appendix. Some things which are typically included
in appendices are: important and original computer programs, data files that are too large to be
represented simply in the results chapters, pictures or diagrams of results which are not
important enough to keep in the main text.

If you have found these documents useful, please feel free to pass the address or a
hard copy to any other thesis writers or graduate student organisations. Please do
not sell them, or use any of the contents without acknowledgement.

Suggestions, thanks and caveats

This document will be updated occasionally. If you have suggestions for
inclusions, amendments or other improvements, please send them. Do so after
you
have submitted the thesis---do not use this invitation as a displacement
activity. I thank Marilyn Ball, Gary Bryant, Bill Whiten and J. Douglas, whose suggestions have been
incorporated in this version. Substantial contributions
will be acknowledged in future versions. I also take this opportunity to
thank my own thesis advisers, Stjepan Marcelja and Jacob Israelachvili, for their
help and friendship, and to thank the graduate students to whom I have had the
pleasure to be an adviser, a colleague and a friend. Opinions expressed in these notes are
mine and do not necessarily reflect the policy of the University of
New South Wales or of the School of Physics.

A FAQ and some observations about the web

Why and how did I write this document? The need for it was evident so,
as one of my PhD students approached the end of his project, I made
notes of everything that I said to him about thesis writing. These notes
became the plan for the first draft of this document, which has been
extended several times since then. I am surprised that it has hundreds
of readers each day. However, this is an important message about the
web. It takes time and thought to make a good resource but, if you do,
it can benefit a lot of people. When this document was first posted, the
web was relatively new and feedback showed that people were often
surprised to find what they sought. Now there is a tendency to take the
web for granted: one is almost disappointed not to find what one is
seeking. However, the web is only as good as the collective effort of
all of us. The readers of this document will be scholars, experts and
educators: among the many contributions you will make to knowledge and
your communities, there may be contributions that should be made freely
available, all over the world. Keep this observation about the web in
the back of your mind for later, when you are not writing a thesis.

How To Write A Dissertation

or

Bedtime Reading For People Who Do Not Have Time To Sleep

To The Candidate:

So, you are preparing to write a Ph.D. dissertation in an experimental
area of Computer Science. Unless you have written many formal documents
before, you are in for a surprise: it's difficult!

There are two possible paths to success:

Planning Ahead.

Few take this path. The few who do leave the University so
quickly that they are hardly noticed. If you want to make a
lasting impression and have a long career as a graduate student,
do not choose it.

Perseverance.

All you really have to do is outlast your doctoral committee. The
good news is that they are much older than you, so you can guess
who will eventually expire first. The bad news is that they are
more practiced at this game (after all, they persevered in the face
of their doctoral committee, didn't they?).

Here are a few guidelines that may help you when you finally get serious
about writing. The list goes on forever; you probably won't want to read it
all at once. But, please read it before you write anything.

The General Idea:

A thesis is a hypothesis or conjecture.

A PhD dissertation is a lengthy, formal document that argues in defense
of a particular thesis. (So many people use the term ``thesis'' to refer
to the document that a current dictionary now includes it as the third
meaning of ``thesis'').

Two important adjectives used to describe a dissertation are ``original''
and ``substantial.'' The research performed to support a thesis must
be both, and the dissertation must show it to be so. In particular,
a dissertation highlights original contributions.

The scientific method means starting with a hypothesis and then
collecting evidence to support or deny it. Before one can write a
dissertation defending a particular thesis, one must collect evidence
that supports it. Thus, the most difficult aspect of writing a
dissertation consists of organizing the evidence and associated
discussions into a coherent form.

The essence of a dissertation is critical thinking, not experimental
data. Analysis and concepts form the heart of the work.

A dissertation concentrates on principles: it states the lessons learned,
and not merely the facts behind them.

In general, every statement in a dissertation must be supported either
by a reference to published scientific literature or by original work.
Moreover, a dissertation does not repeat the details of critical thinking
and analysis found in published sources; it uses the results as fact and
refers the reader to the source for further details.

Each sentence in a dissertation must be complete and correct in a
grammatical sense. Moreover, a dissertation must satisfy the stringent
rules of formal grammar (e.g., no contractions, no colloquialisms, no
slurs, no undefined technical jargon, no hidden jokes, and no slang,
even when such terms or phrases are in common use in the spoken
language). Indeed, the writing in a dissertaton must be crystal clear.
Shades of meaning matter; the terminology and prose must make fine
distinctions. The words must convey exactly the meaning intended,
nothing more and nothing less.

Each statement in a dissertation must be correct and defensible in a
logical and scientific sense. Moreover, the discussions in a
dissertation must satisfy the most stringent rules of logic applied to
mathematics and science.

What One Should Learn From The Exercise:

All scientists need to communicate discoveries; the PhD dissertation
provides training for communication with other scientists.

Writing a dissertation requires a student to think deeply, to organize
technical discussion, to muster arguments that will convince other
scientists, and to follow rules for rigorous, formal presentation of
the arguments and discussion.

A Rule Of Thumb:

Good writing is essential in a dissertation. However, good writing
cannot compensate for a paucity of ideas or concepts. Quite the
contrary, a clear presentation always exposes weaknesses.

Definitions And Terminology:

Each technical term used in a dissertation must be defined either by
a reference to a previously published definition (for standard terms
with their usual meaning) or by a precise, unambiguous definition
that appears before the term is used (for a new term or a standard
term used in an unusual way).

Each term should be used in one and only one way throughout the
dissertation.

The easiest way to avoid a long series of definitions is to include
a statement: ``the terminology used throughout this document follows
that given in [CITATION].'' Then, only define exceptions.

The introductory chapter can give the intuition (i.e., informal
definitions) of terms provided they are defined more precisely later.

Terms And Phrases To Avoid:

adverbs

Mostly, they are very often overly used. Use
strong words instead. For example, one could
say, ``Writers abuse adverbs.''

jokes or puns

They have no place in a formal document.

``bad'', ``good'', ``nice'', ``terrible'', ``stupid''

A scientific dissertation does not make moral
judgements. Use ``incorrect/correct'' to refer
to factual correctness or errors. Use precise
words or phrases to assess quality (e.g.,
``method A requires less computation than
method B''). In general, one should avoid all
qualitative judgements.

``true'', ``pure'',

In the sense of ``good'' (it is judgemental).

``perfect''

Nothing is.

``an ideal solution''

You're judging again.

``today'', ``modern times''

Today is tomorrow's yesterday.

``soon''

How soon? Later tonight? Next decade?

``we were surprised to learn...''

Even if you were, so what?

``seems'', ``seemingly'',

It doesn't matter how something appears;

``would seem to show''

all that matters are the facts.

``in terms of''

usually vague

``based on'', ``X-based'', ``as the basis of''

careful; can be vague

``different''

Does not mean ``various''; different than what?

``in light of''

colloquial

``lots of''

vague & colloquial

``kind of''

vague & colloquial

``type of''

vague & colloquial

``something like''

vague & colloquial

``just about''

vague & colloquial

``number of''

vague; do you mean ``some'', ``many'', or ``most''? A quantative statement
is preferable.

``due to''

colloquial

``probably''

only if you know the statistical probability (if you do, state it
quantatively

``obviously, clearly''

be careful: obvious/clear to everyone?

``simple''

Can have a negative connotation, as in ``simpleton''

``along with''

Just use ``with''

``actually, really''

define terms precisely to eliminate the need to clarify

``the fact that''

makes it a meta-sentence; rephrase

``this'', ``that''

As in ``This causes concern.'' Reason: ``this''
can refer to the subject of the previous
sentence, the entire previous sentence, the
entire previous paragraph, the entire previous
section, etc. More important, it can be
interpreted in the concrete sense or in the
meta-sense. For example, in: ``X does Y. This means ...''
the reader can assume ``this'' refers to Y or
to the fact that X does it. Even when
restricted (e.g., ``this computation...''), the
phrase is weak and often ambiguous.

``You will read about...''

The second person has no place in a formal dissertation.

``I will describe...''

The first person has no place in a formal
dissertation. If self-reference is essential,
phrase it as ``Section 10 describes...''

``we'' as in ``we see that''

A trap to avoid. Reason: almost any sentence
can be written to begin with ``we'' because
``we'' can refer to: the reader and author, the
author and advisor, the author and research
team, experimental computer scientists, the
entire computer science community, the science
community, or some other unspecified group.

``Hopefully, the program...''

Computer programs don't hope, not unless they
implement AI systems. By the way, if you are
writing an AI thesis, talk to someone else:
AI people have their own system of rules.

``...a famous researcher...''

It doesn't matter who said it or who did it.
In fact, such statements prejudice the reader.

Be Careful When Using ``few, most, all, any, every''.

A dissertation is precise. If a sentence
says ``Most computer systems contain X'', you
must be able to defend it. Are you sure you
really know the facts? How many computers
were built and sold yesterday?

``must'', ``always''

Absolutely?

``should''

Who says so?

``proof'', ``prove''

Would a mathematician agree that it's a proof?

``show''

Used in the sense of ``prove''. To ``show'' something,
you need to provide a formal proof.

``can/may''

Your mother probably told you the difference.

Voice:

Use active constructions. For example, say ``the operating system starts
the device'' instead of ``the device is started by the operating system.''

Tense:

Write in the present tense. For example, say
``The system writes a page to the disk and then uses the frame...''
instead of
``The system will use the frame after it wrote the page to disk...''

Define Negation Early:

Example: say ``no data block waits on the output queue'' instead of
``a data block awaiting output is not on the queue.''

Grammar And Logic:

Be careful that the subject of each sentence really does what the verb
says it does. Saying
``Programs must make procedure calls using the X instruction''
is not the same as saying
``Programs must use the X instruction when they call a procedure.''
In fact, the first is patently false! Another example:
``RPC requires programs to transmit large packets''
is not the same as
``RPC requires a mechanism that allows programs to transmit large
packets.''

All computer scientists should know the rules of logic. Unfortunately
the rules are more difficult to follow when the language of discourse is
English instead of mathematical symbols. For example, the sentence
``There is a compiler that translates the N languages by...''
means a single compiler exists that handles all the languages, while
the sentence
``For each of the N languages, there is a compiler that translates...''
means that there may be 1 compiler, 2 compilers, or N compilers. When
written using mathematical symbols, the difference are obvious because
``for all'' and ``there exists'' are reversed.

Focus On Results And Not The People/Circumstances In Which They Were Obtained:

``After working eight hours in the lab that night, we realized...''
has no place in the dissertation. It doesn't matter when you realized it
or how long you worked to obtain the answer. Another example:
``Jim and I arrived at the numbers shown in Table 3 by measuring...''
Put an acknowledgement to Jim in the dissertation, but do not include
names (even your own) in the main body.
You may be tempted to document a long series of experiments that
produced nothing or a coincidence that resulted in success. Avoid
it completely. In particular, do not document seemingly mystical
influences (e.g., ``if that cat had not crawled through the hole in the
floor, we might not have discovered the power supply error indicator
on the network bridge''). Never attribute such events to mystical
causes or imply that strange forces may have affected your results.
Summary: stick to the plain facts. Describe the results without
dwelling on your reactions or events that helped you achieve them.

Avoid Self-Assessment (both praise and criticism):

Both of the following examples are incorrect:
``The method outlined in Section 2 represents a major breakthrough
in the design of distributed systems because...''
``Although the technique in the next section is not earthshaking,...''

References To Extant Work:

One always cites papers, not authors. Thus, one uses a singular verb
to refer to a paper even though it has multiple authors. For example
``Johnson and Smith [J&S90] reports that...''

Avoid the phrase ``the authors claim that X''. The use of ``claim'' casts
doubt on ``X'' because it references the authors' thoughts instead of the
facts. If you agree ``X'' is correct, simply state ``X'' followed by a
reference. If one absolutely must reference a paper instead of a result,
say ``the paper states that...'' or ``Johnson and Smith [J&S 90] presents
evidence that...''.

Concept Vs. Instance:

A reader can become confused when a concept and an instance of it
are blurred. Common examples include: an algorithm and a particular
program that implements it, a programming language and a compiler, a
general abstraction and its particular implementation in a computer
system, a data structure and a particular instance of it in memory.

Terminology For Concepts And Abstractions

When defining the terminology for a concept, be careful to decide
precisely how the idea translates to an implementation. Consider the
following discussion:

VM systems include a concept known as an address space. The system
dynamically creates an address space when a program needs one, and
destroys an address space when the program that created the space
has finished using it. A VM system uses a small, finite number to
identify each address space. Conceptually, one understands that
each new address space should have a new identifier. However, if
a VM system executes so long that it exhausts all possible address
space identifiers, it must reuse a number.

The important point is that the discussion only makes sense because it
defines ``address space'' independently from ``address space identifier''.
If one expects to discuss the differences between a concept and its
implementation, the definitions must allow such a distinction.

Knowledge Vs. Data

The facts that result from an experiment are called ``data''. The term
``knowledge'' implies that the facts have been analyzed, condensed, or
combined with facts from other experiments to produce useful information.

Cause and Effect:

A dissertation must carefully separate cause-effect relationships from
simple statistical correlations. For example, even if all computer
programs written in Professor X's lab require more memory than the
computer programs written in Professor Y's lab, it may not have anything
to do with the professors or the lab or the programmers (e.g., maybe the
people working in professor X's lab are working on applications that
require more memory than the applications in professor Y's lab).

Drawing Only Warranted Conclusions:

One must be careful to only draw conclusions that the evidence supports.
For example, if programs run much slower on computer A than on computer B,
one cannot conclude that the processor in A is slower than the processor
in B unless one has ruled out all differences in the computers' operating
systems, input or output devices, memory size, memory cache, or internal
bus bandwidth. In fact, one must still refrain from judgement unless one
has the results from a controlled experiment (e.g., running a set of
several programs many times, each when the computer is otherwise idle).
Even if the cause of some phenomenon seems obvious, one cannot draw a
conclusion without solid, supporting evidence.

Commerce and Science:

In a scientific dissertation, one never draws conclusions about the
economic viability or commercial success of an idea/method, nor does
one speculate about the history of development or origins of an idea.
A scientist must remain objective about the merits of an idea independent
of its commercial popularity.
In particular, a scientist never assumes that commercial success is a
valid measure of merit (many popular products are neither well-designed
nor well-engineered).
Thus, statements such as ``over four hundred vendors make products using
technique Y'' are irrelevant in a dissertation.

Politics And Science:

A scientist avoids all political influence when assessing ideas.
Obviously, it should not matter whether government bodies, political
parties, religious groups, or other organizations endorse an idea. More
important and often overlooked, it does not matter whether an idea
originated with a scientist who has already won a Nobel prize or a
first-year graduate student. One must assess the idea independent of
the source.

Canonical Organization:

In general, every dissertation must define the problem that motivated
the research, tell why that problem is important, tell what others have
done, describe the new contribution, document the experiments that
validate the contribution, and draw conclusions.
There is no canonical organization for a dissertation; each is unique.
However, novices writing a dissertation in the experimental areas of CS
may find the following example a good starting point:

Chapter 1: Introduction

An overview of the problem; why it is important; a summary
of extant work and a statement of your hypothesis or specific
question to be explored. Make it readable by anyone.

Chapter 2: Definitions

New terms only. Make the definitions precise, concise,
and unambiguous.

Chapter 3: Conceptual Model

Describe the central concept underlying your work. Make
it a ``theme'' that ties together all your arguments. It should
provide an answer to the question posed in the introduction at
a conceptual level. If necessary, add another chapter to give
additional reasoning about the problem or its solution.

Chapter 4: Experimental Measurements

Describe the results of experiments that provide
evidence in support of your thesis. Usually experiments
either emphasize proof-of-concept (demonstrating the
viability of a method/technique) or efficiency (demonstrating
that a method/technique provides better performance than
those that exist).

Chapter 5: Corollaries And Consequences

Describe variations, extensions, or other applications of the
central idea.

Chapter 6: Conclusions

Summarize what was learned and how it can be applied.
Mention the possibilities for future research.

Abstract:

A short (few paragraphs) summary of the the dissertation.
Describe the problem and the research approach. Emphasize
the original contributions.

Suggested Order For Writing:

The easiest way to build a dissertation is inside-out. Begin by
writing the chapters that describe your research (3, 4, and 5 in the
above outline). Collect terms as they arise and keep a definition for
each. Define each technical term, even if you use it in a conventional
manner.

Organize the definitions into a separate chapter. Make the
definitions precise and formal. Review later chapters to verify that
each use of a technical term adheres to its definition.
After reading the middle chapters to verify terminology, write the
conclusions. Write the introduction next. Finally, complete an
abstract.

Key To Success:

By the way, there is a key to success: practice. No one ever
learned to write by reading essays like this. Instead, you
need to practice, practice, practice. Every day.

Parting thoughts:

We leave you with the following ideas to mull over. If they don't mean anything
to you now, revisit them after you finish writing a dissertation.

After great pain, a formal feeling comes.

-- Emily Dickinson

A man may write at any time, if he will set himself doggedly to it.

-- Samuel Johnson

Keep right on to the end of the road.

-- Harry Lauder

The average Ph.D. thesis is nothing but the transference of bones from
one graveyard to another.

However, there are different types of task 1 (line graphs, pie
charts, maps etc) and each requires knowledge of a certain type of
language.

This lesson will look at how to write an IELTS process diagram for task 1.

What is an IELTS Process Diagram?

To begin, look at this question:

You should spend about 20 minutes on this task.

The diagram illustrates the process that is used to manufacture bricks for the building industry.

Summarize the information by selecting and reporting the main features and make comparisons where relevant.

Write at least 150 words.

A process will have a number of stages that are in time order. So you should start at the beginning, and describe each stage through to the last one.

In the example above, this is fairly clear. It begins with the digging of the clay, and ends with delivery.

Processes are not always this clear, and you may have to look more
carefully to spot the beginning, and there may also be two things
happening at the same time.

So it is important that you look at other sample processes to get a good understanding of how they can vary.

Introduce the Diagram

As with any task 1, you can begin by paraphrasing the rubric:

The diagram explains the way in which bricks are made for the building industry.

As you can see, this has been taken from the question, but it has not been copied. You need to write it in your own words.

Highlight the main points

An IELTS process diagram is different to a line, bar, pie chart or
table in that there are not usually key changes or trends to
identify. However, you should still give an overview of what is taking place.

The ‘public band descriptors’ state that to achieve a band 6 or more for ‘task response’ the student must provide an overview in a task 1.

As there are no trends to comment on, you can make a comment on, for example, the number of stages in the process and how it begins and ends:

Overall, there are eight stages in the process, beginning with the digging up of clay and culminating in delivery.

Giving the detail

Now you need to explain the IELTS process diagram, and there are two key aspects of language associated with this:

Time Connectors

A process is a series of events, one taking place after the other. Therefore, to connect your stages, you should use ‘time connectors’.
Here is the rest of the answer with the time connectors highlighted
(notice that you simply go from the beginning to the end of the
process):

To begin, the clay used to make the bricks is dug up from the ground by a large digger. This clay is then placed onto a metal grid, which is used to break up the clay into smaller pieces. A roller assists in this process.

Following this, sand and water are added to
the clay, and this mixture is turned into bricks by either placing it
into a mould or using a wire cutter. Next, these bricks are placed in an oven to dry for 24 – 48 hours.

In the subsequent stage, the bricks go through a heating and cooling process. They are heated in a kiln at a moderate and then a high temperature (ranging from 200c to 1300c), followed by a cooling process in a chamber for 2 – 3 days. Finally, the bricks are packed and delivered to their destinations.

These connectors are the same you would use to write a graph over time when you explain a series of changes.

These are some common IELTS process diagram connectors:

To begin
Following this
Next
Then
After
After that
Before**
Subsequently
Finally

** If you use before, this means that you will be
mentioning a later stage before an earlier stage, so you need to use
it carefully. If you can use it properly though, it will get
noticed.

Here is an example using stages four and five:

Before being dried in the oven, the mixture is turned into bricks by either placing it into a mould or using a wire cutter.

The Passive

When we describe an IELTS process, the focus is on the activities, NOT the person doing them.

When this is the case, we use the passive voice, not the active.

This is a brief explanation of how to use the passive voice, but
if you are new or unsure about using it, you should do some further
study and practice.

Most sentences use this structure:

Subject + Verb + Object

(S) A large digger (V) digs up (O) the clay in the ground.

In the active voice (as above), the digger is doing the verb i.e. the digger is doing the digging.

When we use the passive voice, we make the object (the clay) the
subject, and make the subject (the digger) the object. We also add in
the verb ‘to be’ and the past participle (or Verb 3).

(S) The clay in the ground (V) is dug up (O) by the digger.

So throughout most of your description for your IELTS process diagram, you should be using the passive voice.

This is difficult as some verbs cannot take the passive. For
example, 'to go' cannot be passive, so it is kept in the active voice:

...the bricks go through a heating and cooling process.

This is why you need to make sure you practice the passive so you know exactly how to use it.

Also, as you will see from the description, it is more usual to to comment on who or what is doing the action so the 'by...." phrase is excluded.

Here is the same example description with uses of the passive highlighted:

To begin, the clay (which is) used to make the bricks is dug up from the ground by a large digger. This clay is then placed onto a metal grid, which is used to break up the clay into smaller pieces. A roller assists in this process.

Following this, sand and water are added to the clay, and this mixture is turned into bricks by either placing it into a mould or using a wire cutter. Next, these bricks are placed in an oven to dry for 24 – 48 hours.

In the subsequent stage, the bricks go through a heating and cooling process. They are heated
in a kiln at a moderate and then a high temperature (ranging from 200c
to 1300c), followed by a cooling process in a chamber for 2 – 3
days. Finally, the bricks are packed and delivered to their destinations.

Varying your Language

Sometimes it may be appropriate just to use the same language that
you are given in the IELTS process diagram to describe it, but you
should try to vary it.

You may be able to use nouns from the diagram as your verbs. For example, the noun packaging in stage seven becomes:

Rhetorical Functions in Academic Writing: Describing
processes

Examples

Here is a description of the process of sorting letters.

First of all, letters and packets are collected in
bags from pillar boxes, post offices and firms, in post office vans. They are
then taken to the sorting office, where the bags are emptied and the letters
separated from the packets. Following this step, the letters are put through
machines so that the stamps can be cancelled. In this process the date and
place of sorting are put over the stamps on each envelope. In the next stage,
the sorting of the letters takes place, according to the county they are
addressed to. This is done by placing them in the appropriate pigeon hole.
Subsequently, the letters are taken from the pigeon holes and placed in
baskets, which are then put onto a conveyor belt. While on this conveyor belt,
the baskets are directed to the appropriate secondary sorting section by means
of coding pegs. At the secondary sorting frames, the letters are put into towns
in the county. Later, the letters are tied in bundles and a label is put on
showing the towns they are addressed to. Finally, the letter bundles are placed
in bags, which have the Post Office seal, Post Office Railway number and
Destination Code number on them, and then these are sent to the railway
station.

Notice that the passive form of the verb is widely used. This is because
in this type of writing, we are usually more interested in the process than in
the people doing the work. Observe all the link words.

Example 1

MAKING A TRANSISTOR

1 FIRST MASKING

The silicon base is first coated with silicon
dioxide, which does not conduct electricity, and then with a substance called
photoresist. Shining ultraviolet light through a patterned mask hardens the
photoresist. The unexposed parts remain soft.

2 FIRST ETCHING

A solvent dissolves away the soft unexposed layer
of photoresist, revealing a part of the silicon dioxide. This is then
chemically etched to reduce its thickness. The hardened photoresist is then
dissolved to leave a ridge of dioxide.

3 SECOND MASKING

Layers of polysilicon, which conducts electricity,
and photoresist are applied, and then a second masking operation is carried
out.

4 SECOND ETCHING

The unexposed photoresist is dissolved, and then
an etching treatment removes the polysilicon and silicon dioxide beneath it.
This reveals two strips of p-type silicon.

5 DOPING

The hard photoresist is removed. The layers now
undergo an operation called doping which transforms the newly revealed strips
of p-type silicon into n-type silicon.

6 THIRD MASKING AND ETCHING

Layers of silicon dioxide and photoresist are
added. Masking and etching creates holes through to the doped silicon and
central polysilicon strip.

7 COMPLETING THE TRANSISTOR

The photoresist is dissolved, and a final masking
stage adds three strips of aluminium. These make electrical connections through
the holes and complete the transistor.

In this transistor, known as an MOS type, a
positive charge fed to the gate attracts electrons in the p-type silicon base.
Current flows between the source and the drain, thereby switching the
transistor on. A negative charge at the gate repels electrons and turns the
current off.

Example 2

Carbon, the basic element of organic chemistry,
undergoes a natural cycle in the environment. It exists in the form of carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere. From there it is absorbed by plants to build
carbohydrates in green leaves. When plants burn, and animals breathe out,
carbon dioxide passes back into the air. Also in decaying plant and animal
remains, carbohydrates are broken down to release carbon dioxide into the
atmosphere.

Example 3

THE PHOTOCOPIER

Static electricity enables a photocopier to
produce almost instant copies of documents. At the heart of the machine is a
metal drum which is given a negative charge at the beginning of the copying
cycle. The optical system then projects an image of the document on the drum.
The electric charge disappears where light strikes the metal surface, so only
dark parts of the image remain charged. Positively charged particles of toner
powder are then applied to the drum. The charged parts of the drum attract the
dark powder, which is then transferred to a piece of paper. A heater seals the
powder to the paper, and a warm copy of the document emerges from the
photocopier. A colour copier works in the same basic way, but scans the
document with blue, green and red filters. It then transfers toner to the paper
in three layers coloured yellow, magenta and cyan. The three colours overlap to
give a full colour picture.

Example 4

PAPERMAKING

Printing is of little use without paper. A sheet
of paper is a flattened mesh of interlocking plant fibres, mainly of wood and
cotton. Making paper involves reducing a plant to its fibres, and then aligning
them and coating the fibres with materials such as glues, pigments and mineral
fillers.

1 FELLING

Trees are felled and then transported to paper
mills as logs.

2 DEBARKING

The bark has first to be stripped off the logs
without damaging the wood.

3 PULPING

Pulping reduces the wood to a slurry of loose
fibres in water. The logs are first sliced into chips and then treated with
chemicals in a digester. These dissolve the lignin binding the wood fibres
together. Alternatively, machines may grind the logs in water to produce pulp.
The pulp is then bleached.

4 MIXING

The pulp goes to the mixer, where materials are
added to improve the quality of the paper. The additives include white fillers
such as china clay, size for water-proofing, and coloured pigments. The mixer
beats the fibres into a smooth pulp.

5 FORMING THE WEB

Liquid pulp is fed from the flowbox onto the mesh
belt. Water drains through the holes in the mesh; the drainage is accelerated
by suction. The dandy roll presses the fibres together into a wet ribbon known
as a web.

6 PRESSING

Belts move the web between the press rolls, which
remove more water and compress the paper.

7 DRYING

The damp web moves through the dryer, where it
passes between hot cylinders and felt-covered belts that absorb water. It then
passes through the calender stacks before being wound on reels or cut into
sheets.

Example 5

THE REFRIGERATOR

A
domestic refrigerator uses the cooling effect of an evaporating liquid.
A refrigerant liquid (such as Freon, a compound of carbon, fluorine and
chlorine) is pumped through cooling coils (the evaporator) in which it
expands (evaporates) and absorbs heat from the surroundings. The
evaporator is formed into the ice-making compartment of the
refrigerator. After passing through the cooling
coils in the evaporator, the vapour is then compressed by a compressor
(usually driven by an electric motor) and condensed back to a liquid
when the absorbed heat is given out. The cycle of events is then
repeated over and over again. The refrigerator is really a heat engine
working in reverse. In order to take heat out of the low-temperature
interior of the refrigerator and transfer it to the higher temperature
of the surrounding air, work must be done. If it is to work
continuously, a refrigerator must be supplied
with energy from outside. This external energy is usually electricity,
which operates the electric motor driving the compressor, but it could
be a gas flame. In the food chamber of a domestic refrigerator the
temperature is just above the freezing point of water, about 1° or 2°C:
in the ice-maker and in the deep-freeze it is usually around -15°C.

(Adapted from: The Penguin book of the physical world, London, 1976)

Example 6

The Steam Engine

A
steam engine utilises the energy contained in steam under high
pressure. The energy that is released when steam expands is made to
produce rotary motion which can be used for the driving of machinery.
The steam from the boiler is admitted into the cylinder in which there
is a piston and in which the steam expands, causing the piston to move
(Fig. la). When the piston has travelled
to the end of the cylinder and thus completed its stroke (Fig. lb), the
now expanded steam is allowed to escape from the cylinder. At the same
time the steam is changed over, live steam under pressure being admitted
to the other side of the piston, causing the latter to travel back,
past its starting point (Fig. lc), until it has reached the other end of
its stroke (Fig. Id). A steam engine of this kind is called
"double-acting" because the force of the steam is applied alternately on
two sides of the
piston. While the piston is being forced in one direction by the
expanding steam, the spent steam is pushed out of the cylinder on the
other side of the piston. Reversing, i.e., the change-over of the steam
supply so as to ensure the admission of live steam to the appropriate
side of the piston and the discharge of the spent steam on the other
side, is effected automatically by a control device called a slide
valve.

(Adapted from: How things work 1, Paladin, 1972)

Example 7

Car Braking System

The
braking system of a car is a good example of how a hydraulic system
works. When the brake pedal is pressed a piston operates which forces
brake fluid out of the master cylinder and along four narrow pipes to
the slave cylinders attached to the brake drums or discs so that the
same pressure is applied to the brakes in each wheel. This brings the
car to a smooth halt.
Provided the system is kept filled with brake fluid, hydraulic brakes
work instantly because liquids cannot be compressed to any great extent.

If air leaks into the system, the brakes become much
less efficient. This is because, unlike liquids, gases are compressible
and some of the movement of the brake pedal is taken up in squeezing the
air bubble.

(From: The Penguin book of the physical world. Penguin, 1976)

Language

Sequence

Firstly,

The first step is

First of all,

The first stage is

To begin with,

... begins with

Initially

... commences with

Beforehand,

Before this,

Previously,

Prior to this,

Earlier,

At the same time,

During

Simultaneously,

When this happens

While

Secondly, Thirdly etc

After this,

Next,

The next step is

Then,

In the next stage,

Subsequently,

In the following stage,

Later,

Following this,

As soon as the committee has finished its work,
...

Eventually,

... until ...

Lastly

... finishes with ...

Finally,

concludes with

In the last stage,

The last step is ...

Passive

The silicon base

is coated with silicon dioxide.

Letters and packets

are collected.

The bark

has to be stripped.

Method - how something is done.

First of all, letters and packets are collected in
bags from pillar boxes.

This is done by placing them in the appropriate pigeon hole.

The baskets are directed to the appropriate secondary sorting section by means
of coding pegs.

The drainage is accelerated
by suction.

The vapour is then compressed by means of a compressor.

Position - where something happens

They are
then taken to the sorting office, where the bags are emptied.

The pulp goes to the mixer, where materials are
added to improve the quality of the paper.

The steam from the boiler is admitted into the cylinder in which there is a piston.

Purpose

Following this step, the letters are put through
machines so that the stamps can be cancelled.

This is then
chemically etched to reduce its thickness.

From there it is absorbed by plants to build
carbohydrates in green leaves.

In order to take heat out of the low-temperature interior of the refrigerator, work must be done.

Back in the late 90s, in the process of reading for my MA
dissertation, I put together a collection of hundreds of sentence stems
that I felt could help me with my academic writing later on. And they
did. Immensely. After the course was over, I stacked my sentences away,
but kept wondering if I could ever put them to good use and perhaps help
other DELTA / Trinity / MA / PhD students who know exactly what they want to say, but might have trouble finding the best way to say it.

So
here are 70 sentences extracted and adapted from the original
compilation, which ran for almost 10 pages. This list is organized
around keywords (rather than functions / discourse categories) so I can
explore each word’s ecosystem better, highlight common collocations and
so on.

Before you start:
1. Pay close attention to the words in bold, which are often used in conjunction with the main word.
2. [ ] means “insert a suitable word here”, while ( ) means “this word is optional.”
3. Bear in mind that, within each group, some examples are slightly more formal / less frequent than others.
4. I am not claiming, by any stretch of the imagination, that these are
the most common ways to use each word. These are just examples of
academic discourse that I collected randomly in the late 90s.

Argue
a. Along similar lines, [X] argues that ___.
b. There seems to be no compelling reason to argue that ___.
c. As a rebuttal to this point, it might be (convincingly) argued that ___.
d. There are [three] main arguments that can be advanced to support ___.
e. The underlying argument in favor of / against [X] is that ___.
f. [X]’s argument in favor of / against [Y] runs as follows: ___.

Claim
a. In this [paper], I put forward the claim that ___.
b. [X] develops the claim that ___.
c. There is ample / growing support for the claim that ___.
d. [X]’s findings lend support to the claim that ___.
e. Taking a middle-ground position, [X] claims that ___.

Data
a. The data gathered in the [pilot study] suggests / suggest that ___.
b. The data appears / appear to suggest that ___.
c. The data yielded by this [study] provides strong / convincing evidence that ___. (yielded = generated)d. A closer look at thedata indicates that ___.
e. The data generated by [X] is / are reported in [table 1].
f. The aim of this [section] is to generalize beyond the data and ___.

In modern usage, data can also
be treated as a mass / uncountable noun, like information. Before you
submit your work, check whether the institution you’re writing for / on
behalf of prefers data + plural verb.

Debate
a. [X] has fostereddebate on ___. (fostered = encouraged)
b. There has been an inconclusive debate about whether ___.
c. The question of whether ___ has caused much debate in [our profession] [over the years].
d. (Much of) the current debate revolves around ___.

Discussion
a. In this section / chapter, the discussion will point to ___.
b. The foregoing discussion implies that ___. (foregoing = that came before)
c. For the sake of discussion, I would like to argue that ___.
d. In this study, the question under discussion is ___.
e. In this paper, the discussion centers on ___.
f. [X] lies at the heart of the discussion on ___.

Evidence(Remember: Evidence is uncountable.)
a. The availableevidence seems to suggest that ___ / point to ___.
b. On the basis of the evidence currently available, it seems fair to suggest that ___.
c. There is overwhelming evidence corroborating the notion that ___. (corroborating = confirming)
d. Further evidence supporting / against [X] may lie in the findings of [Y], who ___.
e. These results provide confirmatory evidence that ___.

Ground
a. I will now summarize the ground covered in this [chapter] by ___.
b. On logical grounds, there is no compelling reason to argue that ___.
c. [X] takes a middle-ground position on [Y] and argues that ___.
d. On these grounds, we can argue that ___.
e. [X]’s views are grounded on the assumption that ___.

Issue
a. This study is an attempt to address the issue of ___.
b.In the present study, the issue under scrutiny is ___.
c. The issue of whether ___ is clouded by the fact that ___. (clouded = made less clear)d. To portray the issue in [X]’s terms, ___.
e. Given the centrality of this issue to [my claim], I will now ___.
f. This [chapter] is concerned with the issue of [how/whether/what] ___.
Literature
a. [X] is prominent in the literature on [Y].
b. There is a rapidly growing literature on [X], which indicates that ___.
c. The literature shows no consensus on [X], which means that ___.
d. The (current) literature on [X] abounds with examples of ___.

Premise
a. The main theoretical premise behind [X] is that ___.
b. [X] and [Y] share an important premise: ___.
c. [X] is premised on the assumption that ___.
d. The basic premises of [X]’s theory / argument are ___.
e. The arguments against [X]’s premise rest on [four] assumptions: ___.

Research
a.This study draws on research conducted by ___.
b. Although there has been relatively little research on / into [X], ___.
c. In the last [X] years, [educational] research has provided ample support for the assertion that ___.
d. Current research appears / seems to validate the view that ___.
e. Research on / into ___ does not support the view that ___.
f. Further researchin this area may include ___ and ___.
g. Evidence for [X] is borne out by research that shows ___.
h. There is insufficient research on / into ___ to draw any firm conclusions about / on ___.
Viewa. The consensus view seems to be that ___.
b. [X] propounds the view that ___. (propound = put forward for consideration)
c. Current research (does not) appear(s) to validate such a view.
d. There have been dissenters to the view that ___. (dissenter = someone who disagrees)
e. The answer to [X] / The difference between [X] and [Y] is not as clear-cut as popular views might suggest.
f. The view that _____ is (very much) in line with [common sense].
g. I am not alone in my view that ___.
h. [X] puts forward the view that ___.
i. [X]’s views rest on the assumption that ___.

The secret to a successful essay doesn’t just lie in the clever things you talk about and the way you structure your points.

To be truly brilliant, an essay needs to utilise the right language.
You could make a great point, but if it’s not intelligently articulated,
you almost needn’t have bothered. Developing the language skills to
build an argument and to write persuasively is crucial if you’re to write outstanding essays every time. In this article, we’re going to equip you with the words and phrases
you need to write a top-notch essay, along with examples of how to
utilise them. It’s by no means an exhaustive list, and there will often
be other ways of using the words and phrases we describe that we won’t
have room to include, but there should be more than enough below to help
you make an instant improvement to your essay-writing skills – whether
you’re a native English speaker or taking your first steps into writing
essays in English.

General explaining

Let’s start by looking at language for general explanations of complex points.

1. In order to

Usage: “In order to” can be used to introduce an explanation for the purpose of an argument.

Example: “In order to understand X, we need first to understand Y.”

2. In other words

Usage: Use “in other words” when you want to express
something in a different way (more simply), to make it easier to
understand, or to emphasise or expand on a point.

Example: “Frogs are amphibians. In other words, they live on the land and in the water.”

3. To put it another way

Usage: This phrase is another way of saying “in
other words”, and can be used in particularly complex points, when you
feel that an alternative way of wording a problem may help the reader
achieve a better understanding of its significance.

Example: “Plants rely on photosynthesis. To put it another way, they will die without the sun.”

4. That is to say

Usage: “That is” and “that is to say” can be used to add further detail to your explanation, or to be more precise.

Example: “Whales are mammals. That is to say, they must breathe air.”

5. To that end

Usage: Use “to that end” or “to this end” in a similar way to “in order to” or “so”.

Example: “Zoologists have long sought to understand
how animals communicate with each other. To that end, a new study has
been launched that looks at elephant sounds and their possible
meanings.”

Adding additional information to support a point

Students often make the mistake of using synonyms of “and” each time
they want to add further information in support of a point they’re
making, or to build an argument. Here are some cleverer ways of doing
this.

6. Moreover

Usage: Employ “moreover” at the start of a sentence to add extra information in support of a point you’re making.

Example: “Moreover, the results of a recent piece of research provide compelling evidence in support of…”

7. Furthermore

Usage:This is also generally used at the start of a sentence, to add extra information.

Example: “Furthermore, there is evidence to suggest that…”

8. What’s more

Usage: This is used in the same way as “moreover” and “furthermore”.

Example: “What’s more, this isn’t the only evidence that supports this hypothesis.”

9. Likewise

Usage: Use “likewise” when you want to talk about something that agrees with what you’ve just mentioned.

Example: “Scholar A believes X. Likewise, Scholar B argues compellingly in favour of this point of view.”

10. Similarly

Usage: Use “similarly” in the same way as “likewise”.

Example: “Audiences at the time reacted with shock
to Beethoven’s new work, because it was very different to what they were
used to. Similarly, we have a tendency to react with surprise to the
unfamiliar.”

11. Another key thing to remember

Usage: Use the phrase “another key point to
remember” or “another key fact to remember” to introduce additional
facts without using the word “also”.

Example: “As a Romantic, Blake was a proponent of a
closer relationship between humans and nature. Another key point to
remember is that Blake was writing during the Industrial Revolution,
which had a major impact on the world around him.”

12. As well as

Usage: Use “as well as” instead of “also” or “and”.

Example: “Scholar A argued that this was due to X, as well as Y.”

13. Not only… but also

Usage: This wording is used to add an extra piece of
information, often something that’s in some way more surprising or
unexpected than the first piece of information.

Example: “Not only did Edmund Hillary have the
honour of being the first to reach the summit of Everest, but he was
also appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire.”

14. Coupled with

Usage: Used when considering two or more arguments at a time.

Example: “Coupled with the literary evidence, the statistics paint a compelling view of…”

15. Firstly, secondly, thirdly…

Usage: This can be used to structure an argument, presenting facts clearly one after the other.

Example: “There are many points in support of this view. Firstly, X. Secondly, Y. And thirdly, Z.

16. Not to mention/to say nothing of

Usage: “Not to mention” and “to say nothing of” can be used to add extra information with a bit of emphasis.

Example: “The war caused unprecedented suffering to millions of people, not to mention its impact on the country’s economy.”

Words and phrases for demonstrating contrast

When you’re developing an argument, you will often need to present
contrasting or opposing opinions or evidence – “it could show this, but
it could also show this”, or “X says this, but Y disagrees”. This
section covers words you can use instead of the “but” in these examples,
to make your writing sound more intelligent and interesting.

17. However

Usage: Use “however” to introduce a point that disagrees with what you’ve just said.

Example: “Scholar A thinks this. However, Scholar B reached a different conclusion.”

18. On the other hand

Usage: Usage of this phrase includes introducing a
contrasting interpretation of the same piece of evidence, a different
piece of evidence that suggests something else, or an opposing opinion.

Example: “The historical evidence appears to suggest
a clear-cut situation. On the other hand, the archaeological evidence
presents a somewhat less straightforward picture of what happened that
day.”

19. Having said that

Usage: Used in a similar manner to “on the other hand” or “but”.

Example: “The historians are unanimous in telling us
X, an agreement that suggests that this version of events must be an
accurate account. Having said that, the archaeology tells a different
story.”

20. By contrast/in comparison

Usage: Use “by contrast” or “in comparison” when you’re comparing and contrasting pieces of evidence.

21. Then again

Example: “Writer A asserts that this was the reason for what happened. Then again, it’s possible that he was being paid to say this.”

22. That said

Usage: This is used in the same way as “then again”.

Example: “The evidence ostensibly appears to point to this conclusion. That said, much of the evidence is unreliable at best.”

23. Yet

Usage: Use this when you want to introduce a contrasting idea.

Example: “Much of scholarship has focused on this
evidence. Yet not everyone agrees that this is the most important aspect
of the situation.”

Adding a proviso or acknowledging reservations

Sometimes, you may need to acknowledge a shortfalling in a piece of evidence, or add a proviso. Here are some ways of doing so.

24. Despite this

Usage: Use “despite this” or “in spite of this” when
you want to outline a point that stands regardless of a shortfalling in
the evidence.

Example: “The sample size was small, but the results were important despite this.”

25. With this in mind

Usage: Use this when you want your reader to consider a point in the knowledge of something else.

Example: “We’ve seen that the methods used in the
19th century study did not always live up to the rigorous standards
expected in scientific research today, which makes it difficult to draw
definite conclusions. With this in mind, let’s look at a more recent
study to see how the results compare.”

26. Provided that

Usage: This means “on condition that”. You can also say “providing that” or just “providing” to mean the same thing.

Example: “We may use this as evidence to support our
argument, provided that we bear in mind the limitations of the methods
used to obtain it.”

27. In view of/in light of

Usage: These phrases are used when something has shed light on something else.

Example: “In light of the evidence from the 2013 study, we have a better understanding of…”

28. Nonetheless

Usage: This is similar to “despite this”.

Example: “The study had its limitations, but it was nonetheless groundbreaking for its day.”

29. Nevertheless

Usage: This is the same as “nonetheless”.

Example: “The study was flawed, but it was important nevertheless.”

30. Notwithstanding

Usage: This is another way of saying “nonetheless”.

Example: “Notwithstanding the limitations of the
methodology used, it was an important study in the development of how we
view the workings of the human mind.”

Giving examples

Good essays always back up points with examples, but it’s going to
get boring if you use the expression “for example” every time. Here are a
couple of other ways of saying the same thing.

35. Importantly

Usage: Use “importantly” interchangeably with “significantly”.

Example: “Importantly, Scholar A was being employed
by X when he wrote this work, and was presumably therefore under
pressure to portray the situation more favourably than he perhaps might
otherwise have done.”

Summarising

You’ve almost made it to the end of the essay, but your work isn’t
over yet. You need to end by wrapping up everything you’ve talked about,
showing that you’ve considered the arguments on both sides and reached
the most likely conclusion. Here are some words and phrases to help you.

36. In conclusion

Usage: Typically used to introduce the concluding
paragraph or sentence of an essay, summarising what you’ve discussed in a
broad overview.